


My Name is Legion

by JazzBaby466



Category: Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French
Genre: F/M, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzBaby466/pseuds/JazzBaby466
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after "The Likeness". </p>
<p>Cassie and Sam are looking for a place and planning the wedding. Things are going well. </p>
<p>Until Sam goes away for a weekend and Cassie runs into her psychopath. Terrified that he'll come for her after all, who does she call? Hint: It's not Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Name is Legion

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people had a go at a post-canon fix-it of Rob and Cassie's relationship, because, let's be honest, we all wanted it to happen. Well, here's my take on it. I hope you enjoy it. Comments or Kudos would be very appreciated! Thanks!

_They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes._  
_When Jesus got out of the boat,_  
_a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him._  
_The man lived in the tombs,_  
_and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain._  
_For he had often been chained hand and foot,_  
_but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet._  
_No one was strong enough to subdue him._

_Then Jesus asked him: “What is your name?”_  
_“My name is Legion”, he replied, “for we are many.”_

Mark 5:1-9

 

Ever since I started having them, my bad dreams ( _Nightmares_ , Rafe’s voice corrects me harshly in my head. _You’re not five!_ ) came in two different subcategories. The first was the basic, primitive kind, where he made good on his threat.  
It mostly happened in my apartment, which was as realistically portrayed as dreams can manage, complete with the smudges on my mirror and the seashells on the windowsill. The intimate setting served to make the invasion more painful, I suppose. The day after, I often found myself looking at everyday belongings, like a hairbrush or a scented candle, and feeling my heart stop cold, because they’d been featured in the dream, and I’d almost forgotten, until I came across them and they triggered the memory of unwanted hands in my hair and all over my body.

After those dreams, I found myself curled up in fetal position, with my fists clenched and my cheeks tear-stained and the sound of his breath still echoing in my head. The second kind was much more creative and infinitely more vicious in how it induced the feeling of utter helplessness. In these dreams, I was working a case, alone or with a faceless stranger or sometimes even with Rob, and somehow, I realized that it was him we were after, but I couldn’t make people understand. He’d show up at crime scenes and I would try to point him out to people, but they were always too busy doing something else, and when they finally looked up, he’d already slipped away between the shadows. _He was here_ , I’d tell them desperately. _It was him, I know it._ But they’d dismiss my troubles with a single raised eyebrow and half-amused grin, then go right back to their clipboards. And then, when I dared look around again, of course he was back with that sly look on his face that seemed to say: _You’re mine, Cassie. I own you._

From those ones, I’d wake up feeling like a trapped animal, heart racing and breath going fast and shallow. Often, an incoherent, senseless string of words would tumble out of my mouth and for the first few seconds, I’d still try to convince people that he was there and tell them what he was capable of in a rushed, frantic series of incomprehensibleness.

A dream of the second kind pulled the rug out from under me when I was least expecting it. A few months had gone by after the end of Operation Mirror. Internal Affairs was done with me, and I was back in DV, where things were the way they always had been and always would be. I was wearing Sam’s ring on my finger, and it had begun to look and feel familiar, like it had always been there. We didn’t live together yet, Sam and I – not for some old-fashioned reason like the fact that we weren’t married yet – but we slept over at each other’s apartments almost every single night, and we were looking for a place.  
I knew that if we asked Sam’s uncle for help, we could easily get ourselves a beautiful house, but I also knew that Sam didn’t want that. Understandably, he seemed to think that corruption wasn’t a good foundation for a home. Either way, with our combined salaries, we should still be able to afford something nice.

We had decided on a spring wedding. This would also give us a few months to plan everything. If it had been up to me, we might have just had a small ceremony with only a few friends and close relatives. But Sam’s family was having none of that. They’d been heartwarmingly welcoming when they had first met me. His sisters had pulled me into tight, floral-scented hugs, and his mom had looked at me lovingly and kissed me on the cheek. They were all of them over the moon that Sam was engaged, and wanted us to have a big, beautiful wedding with lots of family from all over Ireland. His youngest sister was even urging me to invite my cousins from France, so that “the whole family” could be together. So I knew I wouldn’t be too busy with our wedding preparations, because Sam’s family was only delighted to help.

It was a peaceful time. During nights, lying right next to my fiancée, I’d mostly dreamt of beautiful, safe places. Some memories from Whitethorn House had also found their way into my sleep: Daniel’s cigarette case, Abby’s rich alto singing voice, the taste of punch on my tongue, the sound of Rafe playing the piano in the distance and the feeling of Justin’s hand brushing my hair as he walked by.

That’s why the sudden resurgence of Nightmare Type Two caught me completely off-guard.

I awoke in a panic, stuttering unintelligibly, the way I often do after those dreams. Only this time, I wasn’t alone.

“Hey, Cassie”, said Sam’s voice next to me. “Baby, you’re grand! You’re safe!”

I was sitting up now and his hands were on my shoulders. I stared at him, wild-eyed and breathing heavily.  
He looked at me, wrinkles of concern on his forehead, then pulled me into a tight embrace. It took me a moment to realize that he, the animal, wasn’t anywhere near me and that I didn’t have to convince anybody of anything. After a while, I relaxed into his hug and he kissed the top of my head softly.

“You’re grand, baby”, he said again. “Just a dream. Not real.”

I was still silent, willing my heartbeat to slow and taking in big lungfuls of Sam’s particular scent. After a while, I lifted my head and he cupped my face with one hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?”, he inquired gently. I knew that if I wanted to tell him about the dream, I’d have to tell him about its root in reality and I would have to start at the very beginning. And honestly, I didn’t feel like I had it in me. I vividly remembered the way my hands had shaken when I’d opened up to Rob.

“Not really”, I replied earnestly, when I felt like I could trust my voice again. “I just want to forget about it.”

If this offended Sam, he knew how to hide it well. “Sure”, he said and kissed me. “What would you like to eat for breakfast?”

At the time, I’d mostly been concerned with what Sam might be thinking. I didn’t once stop to ask myself why the nightmares had come back just then, of all times. In retrospect, of course I know that it wasn’t simply coincidence. If my time in Whitethorn House had taught me anything, then that some things run deeper than knowledge or logic. With that dream, my instincts were sending me a warning, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

 

“Are you sure you can’t come?”, Sam asked me after breakfast and looked at me with puppy eyes, which I was trying hard not to be affected by.

This weekend, Sam had planned to go to Galway, to visit his family. They usually met up a few times a year anyway; they were a close-knit bunch. To them, the fact that a wedding was coming up was only all the more reason to get all of them together on the family farm.

“You know I can’t”, I replied with a regretful smile. “I haven’t seen Emma in ages and I promised I’d be there for her birthday.”

Emma had been my best friend throughout childhood and even though we hadn’t kept in touch the way we’d promised we would, we were still friends and I really wanted to be there for her birthday that Friday night. Sam began clearing off the table and kissed my head as he passed me.

“I know”, he said quietly. “I understand.”

“Hey”, I replied, whirled around and caught him by the arm. “Why are you being so dramatic? You’ll be back Sunday night. We can talk on the phone. Why do you act like we’ll be separated for a year?”

Immediately, the air was filled with unspoken truths about Operation Mirror: the way Sam had never wanted me to go under and how we’d been apart for much longer than I’d initially assured him. At the time, we’d only been going out for a while, things had been going great and then Frank had dragged me back into his madness and I’d leaped right out of that safe nest Sam and I had built for ourselves, without listening to his warnings. I had accidently summoned all those thoughts and unvoiced accusations, and now they were filling the room like smoke, but Sam was kind enough not to bring any of that up.

He shook his head, as if to clear it, then forced a smile. “You’re right, Cassie. Sure, it’s only for one weekend. I don’t know what’s going on with me.”

And then, he reached out to run his fingers through my curls and said: “I think I’m becoming dangerously attached to you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are”, I said, grinning up at him. “Did you know that people can be like drugs to other people? When you’re up in Galway without me, watch for withdrawal symptoms.”

He grinned back. “Did they teach you that at Trinity?”

He was referring to my three years of Psychology. Like most other people, he had no idea why I had dropped out after that, and I was dreading the day he would realize this and ask.

“That and many other things”, I replied mysteriously, and got up to help him clear the table.

A little later, when I left for work, the brewing atmosphere of something coming, even if that something was as faceless and nameless as it was unlikely during these peaceful times, still hadn’t dissolved. “Will you still be here when I come home after work?”, I asked Sam.

It came out unintentionally dramatic and he looked up at me.

“No, I’ll be gone in a few hours.”

Gone, echoed in my head. I’ve never been the dramatic type. The fact that somehow my fiancée leaving me for a weekend felt to me like I was seeing him off to war – or possibly like he was seeing me off to something with similar chances of survival – made me want to smack myself in the face hard, then straighten up my shoulders again as the normal Cassie.

“Alright, sure”, I said with forced cheerfulness. “By the way, do we have any wine I can bring to Emma’s tonight?”

“I think we’ve a botte left somewhere, yeah.”

“Great. Well, I’m off to work. I’ll see you Sunday, then.”

I put on my coat and went to grab my purse, then stopped mid-motion when I felt Sam’s arms around me. For a moment, we just stood there, his cheek against mine so that I could feel his breath on my collarbone.

“I’ll miss you”, he whispered.

I closed my eyes for a second, then took a sharp breath and straightened up, out of his embrace.

“I have to go now. I’m running late. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow, alright? Say Hi to everyone from me! Tell them, next time I’ll come with you!”

“Sure. See you, love”, he said and we kissed good-bye. I fought down the urge to grab him by the shoulders and hold on tight. Instead, I made it a brief kiss; the kind business men give their stay-at-home-wives on the way out. After I had closed the door, I didn’t look over my shoulder.

 

***

 

Thankfully, work was the same as ever, which helped decrease the irrational feeling of impending doom. People can joke about DV all they want – hell, I used to make the exact same jokes a while ago! – but it has one thing going for it: it doesn’t have any nasty surprises up its sleeve the way Murder does. It would never throw you a curveball the way Operation Vestal did to Rob and me.

That day, one woman I’d worked with decided to go to a shelter, and another finally decided to press charges against her abusive husband. There was meaning and comfort in that, much more than I’d ever found after Vestal ended, even though technically we’d got our man and justice had been restored. Small, simple comfort maybe, but comfort nonetheless.

Afterwards, the night at Emma’s also went well. I met some of our mutual friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time and we shot the breeze for a while. Everyone was only stoked when they spotted my ring. Emma, of course, knew already and kept going on about the wedding. At some point during the night, we were tipsy enough that they, along with a sudden bout of nostalgia and unexpected mental throwback to our teen years, had me persuaded to send Sam a text asking whether I should wear red underwear underneath my white dress.

He took it like a man and texted back that even though it was entirely up to me, he absolutely wouldn’t mind that. Emma snatched the phone from my hands and read the text out loud. All of us were laughing so hard, tears formed in our eyes.

“Cassie, Cassie”, Emma said with a smile and a sigh a bit later and pulled me into a one-armed hug near the window.

“Gettin’ married. Who would’ve thought.”

“Oh, it’ll be your turn soon enough”, I assured her. She wasn’t currently seeing anyone, but I knew she wanted to.

“Hopefully.” She smiled at me. “This was a fun night, Cass. We should meet up more often.”

I agreed that we should and stayed to help her clean up. After that, I went home feeling slightly dizzy and mindlessly content. I couldn’t remember why I’d felt so uneasy in the morning and I couldn’t even remember my dream.

 

***

 

The next morning, I slept in. Shortly after I woke up, Sam called me.

“Good morning, sweetie”, he said and I could hear the grin in his voice. “Are you feelin’ alright?”

I laughed, knowing he was referring to my text and the amounts of booze that had presumably led up to it. “It was only a bit of wine, I swear!”

“If you say so. Did you have fun, then?”

“Yes. It was wonderful seeing Emma and the rest of the girls again. How about you?”

He told me things in Galway were great. All of his siblings couldn’t wait to see me again and were already planning the next get-together. We chatted for a while, then I admitted than I hadn’t showered yet and he said he should probably get back to the others, so we hung up.

Still feeling cheerful, I got ready, then left the house to go grocery shopping.

And that was when it happened. The evil, at last.

I was standing in the dairy isle, looking for unskimmed milk, when I felt somebody walk up to me, turned my head and immediately dropped the carton of skimmed milk I had been holding and meaning to put back. It was _him_.

I hadn’t seen him in years, but I recognized him right away, the same way I would always recognize dealer boy who had stuck the knife between my ribs. The same way I would always recognize Rosalind. It was like walking across a frozen lake, looking at the blue sky, not a care on you, when suddenly, the ice cracks and faster than you can grasp what is happening, the breath gets knocked out of you and you are submerged in icy water.

I don’t know for how long I stood there, unmoving, eyes wide and terrified, mouth open. In retrospect, I really wish I hadn’t given him the deer-in-headlights stare, because I know he enjoyed every bloody second of it.

He had always been a handsome man, and the years had been good to him. There were new shadows underneath his cheek bones; his jaw had become more defined. Most people would have probably described him as attractive, but I couldn’t make myself think of him in those terms. He made the hairs stand up on my neck and made my blood cook with primal terror. Everything in me wanted to run, get out, get away, _run, run, fucking run_!

A lazy grin appeared on his face. “Cassie Maddox”, he said calmly and actually hearing that voice felt like a punch to the stomach. I could only gasp.

“You’re looking well”, he said, still in that blasé, semi-amused tone. With a quick glance at my hand, he added: “The ring suits you.”

I clenched my fists and managed to whisper: “What are you doing here?”

He actually laughed at that and the sound was as intense as a million high bells ringing at the same time.

“I still live in Dublin, you know. I can go anywhere I want in this city.”

My eyes were searching his body now. Reflex: I think I was subconsciously expecting to find a weapon. But he was just standing there, arms relaxed, shoulders relaxed, head tilted slightly as he took in the sight of me.

Hearing him made my brain throw a thousand memories at me, too fast for me to see them all as they flew by. I caught a few, though.

_“Here, Cassie. I bought this for you.”_  
_A small, bronze bracelet. One of the cheap kind, but still._  
_“For me? Thanks, Conrad.”_

_“Conrad and Cassie, sitting on a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”_  
_Sarah-Jane giggling. Me rolling my eyes at her. “I told you we’re just friends.”_  
_“But that can’t be true now, can it? Tell me, where did you get that bracelet?”_  
_I blush, try to hide my hand from her. “It doesn’t mean anything. We had a fight before. It was his way of apologizing. We’re just friends, okay?”_

  
_“Hey. Sorry, I don’t want to be annoying or anything, but… do you have those notes I gave you?”_  
_Cold stare. “I gave those back to you.”_  
_Embarrassed little laugh from me. “Um… no? Sorry, but no. You didn’t.”_  
_Disgusted look. “What the hell. I gave them to you this morning! Why are you making things up, Cassie?”_  
_“I… um… I suppose… I’ll look for them again?”_  
_Still with the cold stare. “You do that.”_

_That night. His hand against my cheek, his lips close to mine._  
_Then, last second, my turn of the head. “Sorry, I just… This just doesn’t feel right.”_  
_His eyes widening in surprise for a second, then going right back to calm. “Oh, really? Alright.”_  
_And the next day: the stares and whispers, nobody talking to me…_

I’d thought about telling him what he’d done to me many times. I’d written a million angry letters in my head before I’d realized… to somebody like him, they would mean nothing. The letters were all addressed to the person I had thought he was for two years; the friend I’d mistaken him for. But the real him, he would just grin and feel amused and probably keep the letter as a bargaining chip. No matter how angry I got, no matter what I said, I would never get through to him the way you can get through to normal people.

Suddenly, I remembered Rob asking me for his name. In that moment, I hadn’t been able to say it. It was a simple name, much too simple for somebody like him. And I’d told Rob so much already; I’d opened a door that I’d promised myself would stay locked forever. Somehow, I had needed to at least keep that name, that tiny last piece of the puzzle, all to myself. Also, the name I had told him had felt much more appropriate.

_My name is Legion. For we are many._

I’d learned soon that Conrad wasn’t the only one. There were more people like him out there, walking among the rest of us. Sometimes, I catch somebody’s eye out on the streets and their expression sends that electric spark through me. Sometimes, they seem to know that I know and they give me that cold stare. Then, I tear my gaze off them and both of us just keep walking.

_My name is Legion. For we are many._

When I spoke, my voice sounded distant. “Don’t come near me again.”

That spark in his eyes. He’d missed toying with me.

“Are you telling me where to shop, Cassie? Sorry, but that’s not really up to you, is it? Or…” Vicious grin. “Are you going to arrest me?”

My insides turned to stone. He _knew_. He knew I was a cop. He knew what I was doing with my life.

“If I ever get a chance, yes, of course”, I said, still feeling like someone else was talking for me.

“Well, forgive me if I say that you don’t seem very threatening to me. On the contrary, it rather seems to me like you’ve gone soft, Cassie. I mean, you’ve become quite domesticated, haven’t you?”

I felt like the ground was opening up beneath me. Oh no, I thought. Don’t bring Sam into this.

“I hope your fiancée is enjoying his weekend away”, he said. Suddenly, the smile was gone and he looked at me levelly with those unblinking eyes. “I hope you’ll enjoy your weekend at home alone.”

That was when I dropped the basket with groceries, and finally responded to my instincts by legging it out of that shop.

 

I rushed back to my apartment, fumbled for the key, and when I was finally inside, collapsed against the door. My hands were shaking violently. His voice echoed in my head.

_I can go anywhere I want in this city. I hope you’ll enjoy your weekend at home alone._

After all these years, he still knew exactly how to balance his words when talking to me. Was it a threat, hidden behind careful phrasing? Or had he simply been mocking me for the fun of it?

He knew that I was alone this weekend. He knew about Sam. And the implications of that made me feel nauseous and light-headed.

Didn’t that mean that he was observing me? Did he maybe have informants; people close to me? I wondered briefly whether this was how paranoid schizophrenics felt.

Maybe, I told myself, it was all coincidence. Sam and I had, after all, announced our engagement in the papers, the old-fashioned way. It was possible that he’d simply stumbled across that. Maybe he had been guessing that Sam wasn’t home this weekend, a shot in the dark. Maybe something about me had told him that I was preparing for a night alone. He had always been good at reading people, after all.

Still, the fact that I couldn’t make sense of him only terrified me even more. I realized that if I didn’t do anything, I’d probably remain in my spot, slouched against the door and trembling all over, for hours. So I reached for my phone and dialed a number.

The reasonable thing would’ve been to call Sam. Later, I began asking myself why that wasn’t exactly what I did. Possibly, I felt that I couldn’t waste time explaining things; I needed to talk to somebody who already knew all the details. Possibly, my decision was influenced by some deeper mechanism of the inner workings of my mind. The way toddlers will instinctively call for their mother when in danger, I instinctively reached out to my former partner, the man who had given me cover in the past. It was as if that night at my apartment and the horrible fallout was suddenly erased from my memory, and instead, all those moments of raiding houses and interviewing suspects and making each other feel safe were vivid and clear, when he picked up the phone and I said: “Rob?”

I thought of that time during Operation Mirror, when I had thought I had just jeopardized my entire career and called Rob. I hadn’t been able to speak, then. And I didn’t know what I would have said. This was different. I wasn’t going to hang up on him a second time. I could hear him suck in his breath sharply, before he replied.

“Cassie.” He didn’t ask how I was doing, nor did he make up some terrible excuse about being busy at the moment. He heard my labored breath and drew the right conclusion.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“It’s him”, I choked. “The guy I went to uni with. I saw him today. And he knew all these things about me. Rob, I…”

“Where are you?”, he interrupted sharply. 

“My apartment. My old apartment.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. Sam’s gone for the weekend. And he knows that, too! He told me so!”

Rob swore under his breath, then asked: “Do you have your gun?”

“Yes. Of course. But still, I just…”

I trailed off, unsure of what to say, and after a pause, he asked very quietly: “Do you want me to come over?”

My heart skipped a beat and before I could stop myself, I said: “Yes. Yes, please.”

We hung up after that. He didn’t need to say it; I knew he was coming. I knew he was grabbing his stuff this very second and getting into the car. And I was still sitting on the ground, leaning against the door, faintly shaking.

For a few minutes, I couldn’t move. Then, I realized that he was actually coming, _Rob_ was coming, and I didn’t want him to see me like this. Thankfully, I had about half an hour to compose myself. Suddenly electrified, I went through the apartment and began tugging away the things that weren’t for him to see, hiding away my bra and the t-shirt I’d slept in, and, much more importantly, all traces of Sam. His clothes, his deodorant, his toothbrush… I even took the framed picture of the two of us and put it into the top drawer of the nightstand. It felt like betrayal and it hurt like hell, but somehow I thought that that was still better than witnessing the look on Rob’s face when he spotted these things.

Before he rang the doorbell, he texted me, letting me know it was him. While this was very considerate, I knew Conrad and I wasn’t taking any chances. I opened the door with the gun in my hand, pointed at the person behind it.

And there it was, the moment at last: Rob right in front of me, back in my life. He looked older; there was no denying that. The shadows in his face and around his eyes made it look like at least five years had gone by since I’d last seen him. Admittedly, he’d been in rough shape all throughout Operation Vestal, but not like this, not this defeated hollowness. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe, if I scratched long and hard enough, underneath the surface the old Rob would emerge, with that sparkle in his eyes and always ready to reach out and pull my hair to annoy me.

He looked down at the gun in my hands, and I did, too.

Then, we both looked back up again. “Didn’t you get my text?”, he asked.

I shrugged a little. “Yeah. But still.”

He looked back at the gun. “Jesus. You aren’t taking any chances, are you?”

I slowly lowered my hands. “Not quite the welcome you were expecting?”

And then, the absurdity of it all overwhelmed us both at the same time and we broke out in uncontrolled laughter, and Rob stepped forward and pulled me into a tight hug and it felt like finally letting go of the breath you’ve been holding for too long.

We were still grinning when we let go of each other, and I said: “Sorry about that”, and placed the gun on the shelve beside the doorframe. I closed the door behind him and when I turned back around, the momentary relaxation had gone out of his face.

“You were probably right, though”, he said, vaguely gesturing towards the weapon. “Better lock the door, too.”

I shrugged again and nodded then. “Maybe I should.” I thought: At least I’m not alone anymore. But I didn’t dare say that. It was too early.

“Where’s Sam anyway?”, Rob asked next, and I thought I could see him cramp up a little bit at the mention of Sam’s name.

“Up in Galway. Visiting his family.”

He nodded. “Always the family man, eh?”

I decided to ignore the faint hint of bitterness in his voice. “They are very close.”

He didn’t ask why I hadn’t joined him. I was all ready to use Emma’s birthday in my defense, but then I understood suddenly that he wasn’t _going_ to ask: that it was harder for him to imagine a reason why I would go visit Sam’s family with him than to find an explanation why I wouldn’t. He had never really accepted Sam and me as a legitimate couple. He still couldn’t imagine us actually being in love.

Maybe that should’ve angered me. Maybe I should’ve kicked him back out right then. But it didn’t. And I didn’t. Instead, I said: “I don’t know about you, but I really need a drink.”

He looked surprised for a moment, then said: “Sure. What do you have?”

The wine was gone now, after Emma’s party, but I found a bottle of whisky I’d forgotten about and poured us both some. We sat down on the couch and drank and slowly, I could feel myself settle in my seat.

“So”, I said after a while, when I realized that he wasn’t going to speak first. “They say you’re a floater now.”

There was a defensive twitch in his shoulders, then he shrugged and said: “They’re right.”

Obviously, things could have been worse. He could’ve been reverted back to uniform, for example. Besides, far worse things had come out of Vestal for the both of us than a life of door-to-door and typing up statements. But maybe he couldn’t quite see it that way, so I kept it to myself.

“How is it, then?”, I asked instead.

Again the defensive shrug. “Like you’d expect. It feels boring. Pointless.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well”, he said on a sigh and threw back his head to finish the drink in one swift motion. “How about you, then? You’re in DV, I hear?”

I laughed a little and he looked up. “Everybody always hears everything, don’t they?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s Ireland. What did you expect?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” I thought for a moment, then asked: “Do you remember the… the _cabin_ fever feel in Murder?”

Rob gave a small, reluctant laugh. “God, yes. And the level of hysteria when nothing exciting was going on, so that people had to fabricate their own stories to keep things interesting?”

I smiled faintly. “And every once in a while, some big scandal happened and everyone was just over the moon.”

“Yeah. Like you joining the squad. That was a big one.”

I cocked my head and looked at him. “Really? I don’t think you ever told me what people actually said about me.”

We were sliding back into our old style of communication as easily as you slide back into your own Dublin accent when you come home to the city after some time away. Rob disclosed some of the less than flattering theories about my entry into Murder to me, and of course, we were a bit hesitant at first, carefully expanding the range of what was permissible, but after a while, we were going back-and-forth, teasing and grinning the way we always had.

“Quigley must’ve come up with that one”, I said off-handedly, after Rob had told me the least creative of all theories. “Out of jealousy, because the last time he was touched by a woman was when his mammy kissed him good-night.”

Rob laughed, but then, out of nowhere, seemed to remember where we were and what was going on and straightened up. I could see the exact second it happened: the ripple that went through his upper body, the sudden tight set to his jaw, and I couldn’t help but think: No, no, stay with me.

“Do you plan on staying in DV, then?”, he asked, and just like that we were back to the awkward small-talk.

“Not sure yet”, I replied honestly, and took another sip of my whisky, which burned my throat going down.

“Murder isn’t really an option anymore, though, is it”, he said quietly, and I wasn’t sure whether he was thinking of Vestal or Sam or a combination of both. I bit my lip and slid my legs under my body.

“Maybe not. But I haven’t ruled out going back one day, personally. Maybe there’ll be a chance.”

He raised his eyebrows a fraction. “Really? Alright. Good for you.”

We sat in silence for a while and drank some more. “I heard you went back to uni to finish your degree”, he said after a while, and I almost choked on my drink.

“What?”, he asked, frowning. “Does that mean it’s not true?”

I shook my head. How could I ever explain to him the beauty and insanity that had been Operation Mirror?

“It’s not that easy, Rob. I did go back to uni, yes. But not to finish my degree.”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed. “Let’s just say that, once Frank Mackey has sunk his teeth into your calf, he never really lets you go again.”

I could see the realization slowly transform his face. And when he spoke, I thought I heard a note of deep respect in his voice. “Undercover work. You went back under for Frank Mackey.”

I nodded and gave him a small, sad smile. “Yes. I did. I was a student at Trinity again. That’s probably where the rumors came from.”

He looked at me intently, and already, it seemed as if some of the grey had faded out of his face; as if simply looking at me was bringing back the color. “How was that for you?”, he asked quietly.

“It was insane”, I said before I could help myself. “I lived with these four people at a beautiful house in the Wicklow mountains. And things got… things got messy. You know what I mean.”

He nodded solemnly. “Vestal messy?”

“You could say that.”

I couldn’t talk about Daniel or Lexie or any of the others now; it was too much. Thankfully, he seemed to sense that.

“I’m sorry”, was all he said and left it at that. Then, he began asking me about Conrad. “So you saw him today…”

He started carefully, watching me closely for a reaction. I’d been a mess on the phone. It must’ve been clear to him how hard I was working to stay composed. I appreciated the cautious hesitancy.

“Yes”, I said and took a deep breath. “I saw him. At a grocer’s shop.”

“That must have been a shock”, Rob said carefully and my own sarcastic laugh took me by surprise.

“One hell of a shock, yes. Honestly, it’s a miracle it didn’t happen much sooner. Dublin is small that way, we all know that.” He gave me a piercing look.

“So you think it was a coincidence?”

I sighed and shifted on the sofa. “Rob, there’s really no way of knowing. That’s what he’s like. But yes, I think there’s at least a chance that we simply ran into each other.”

“You said he knew things about you, though…”

“He did”, I admitted. “He knew I was a cop for one thing. But a lot of people know that. Sarah-Jane, for example, and for all I know, he’s still in contact with her. She could’ve told him. Right?”

“Right. What else did he know, though?”

I bit my lip. This was the more troubling part. “He knew about Sam. I mean, he saw the ring on my finger, obviously.” I thought I saw Rob wince a tiny bit at that, but I simply kept talking. “But he also knew that Sam wasn’t in town this weekend. He said I hope you’ll enjoy your weekend at home alone.”

“Maybe he was bluffing?”

“Possibly. That had actually occurred to me, too. He’s impossible to read, though.”

Rob began looking around the apartment uncomfortably. “Maybe we should… call somebody?”

“And tell them what exactly?”

“Well, it was a threat, wasn’t it?”

“But it probably won’t seem that way to other people.”

“Maybe not”, he admitted, deflating a little. “We could go somewhere else, though?”

In a sudden moment of defiance, I straightened my back and said: “No. That’s exactly what he wants. He drops hints like that and he wants me to abandon my home, terrified. But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to stay right here, Rob. I’ve already said this when I first told you about him. He’ll probably never actually do it. He enjoys the thought that I can’t even feel safe in my own home; that any second I have to expect him to come and wreck everything. And I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. If he changes his mind, though, if he does come after all, I’ll be ready and I’ll make damn sure he regrets it.”

Rob was watching me closely again and I saw something in his eyes that I couldn’t quite read. Admiration, maybe? Affection? “Sounds like you don’t really need me here, after all.”

That was when I understood. An hour ago, I’d been a trembling mess on the ground. Now, I was feeling strong and belligerent, ready to take on the person who had destroyed my adolescence and haunted my adult life for the longest time, and make him pay for it, should he ever dare threaten me again. And the reason for that was Rob; the way my past self was reflected in him. The pre-Vestal and pre-Mirror Cassie, that strong, sassy girl, had been dormant in me all this time and his presence had opened the vault and she came rushing back in like a drug surging through your veins. I ran my fingers through my hair and felt her come back to me. With each breath, I could feel her spread out in me and we melted closer together until, at last, we were one again.

“Rob”, I said, and I was speaking with her voice again now, confident, strong. “Thank you for picking up your phone. And thank you for coming.”

He looked at me intently. He had seen the change, too. “Of course”, he whispered.

“Will you stay the night?”, I asked.

There were so many layers to that question. I wanted him to stay to protect me. I wanted him to stay to see me protect myself, should it come to that. I wanted him to stay simply because I wanted to be near him and I wanted him near me. I wanted him to stay because once he’d come back to me, I didn’t know how to let him go again.

“If that’s what you want, yes, of course.”

And then we both let out long breaths of relief. It was settled now. He would stay with me.

A little after that, we began talking old times and do-you-remember-this and do-you-remember-that the way I’d always thought we would. I couldn’t have told you how much time passed that way. All I know is that by the end of it, it was dark out and we were both sprawled over the sofa comfortably and I was feeling heavy and tired. I yawned and Rob looked at me.

“You look much more relaxed now.”

“More relaxed than when? More relaxed than when _I was pointing a bloody gun_ at you? I should hope so!”

He snorted and I laughed, too, thinking that I couldn’t believe that that was how our reunion had actually played out, out of all the endless possibilities.

“Do you want to go lay down?”, Rob asked gently. “I’ll stay up and watch the door, make sure you’re safe.”

I shook my head slowly in response and then extended a hand to him, gradually and effortful like a person under water. “No. Come with me.”

His face went blank for a second, but I could see the conflicting emotions behind his eyes. It seemed like a long time had passed, until he nodded, took my hand and said: “Okay, if that’s what you want, Cassie.”

When we walked to my bedroom, part of me felt like I was free-falling, almost like that time I’d defied Frank’s direct orders over the phone during Mirror. Another part, though, felt safe and like I was doing the only logical thing in that moment. Fully clothed, I lay down and waited for Rob to join me. We lay silently next to each other for a bit, no talking, then finally he reached out, put an arm around me and pulled me close.

It was so much like that night, the night that had ruined everything, and yet so different. Maybe, I thought wildly, maybe they were opposites. Maybe we’d been sent here by some desire of the universe to fix things between us. Maybe this was the night to undo all of the damage.

For a long time, all we did was lay there and listen to each other’s breath. Rob’s lips were close to my hair and his arms were still wrapped around me. The absolute only thing that kept me from turning around and kissing him was the ring on my finger.

“Cassie”, he whispered at some point.

“Rob?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything”, I said and I knew that it was true. In that moment, he could’ve asked me anything and I would’ve answered truthfully. “That one time…” It sounded like his throat was tight. He was struggling to get out the words. “That one time when I called you… when you were with Sam… Did you know that it was me on the phone?”

I had a feeling like I was sinking, like I was being lowered into a new realm. I had always assumed that he would never have a chance to ask me this question.

“Yes. I knew it was you, Rob. That’s why I didn’t hang up. I couldn’t.”

Sam and I had been sleeping next to each other, and the phone had still been there, close to my face, and I had listened to the sounds of Rob on the other end of the line for hours. A shiver went through his body and he pulled me closer.

Neither of us slept that night. We just lay there, trying to comprehend the fact that we were close again and feeling for the other person’s warmth, their heartbeat. I knew that we may only have a few hours together, but Daniel’s voice reminded me gently: _Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it._ Those hours until morning were strange, otherworldly. They stretched out before us, seemed almost endless. The normal rules of time didn’t apply to us during that night. By the time the sun came up, we’d lived an entire life together.

Laying there in the dark, I had no idea what I was going to do. I took refuge in that uncertainty. I took that panicky part of me that was wondering frantically how the hell I was supposed to resolve this situation and locked it away safely until the next day. I knew that there was a fair chance that I would tell Rob to leave, say it had been a huge mistake to call him, give Sam a ring, explain everything and apologize a million times. But there was also, and a tiny, blossoming part of my mind was hanging on to this, a small chance that I wouldn’t call Sam and that I would ask Rob to stay.

I had no idea whether I would marry Sam, in the end. I didn’t even know whether I would ever see Rob again, after that night. But it didn’t really seem to matter, because with every shared breath, something was passing between Rob and me; something that nobody could take from us ever again.

And for a confusing, insane second, I thought of Conrad and felt gratitude, because somehow he was the one who had made this night possible.

I’m not a religious person, but in that moment, feeling Rob’s chest rise and fall against my back and putting my face to his hand, I felt certain that somehow, some kind of power was making sure that everything would make sense again in the end.


End file.
